Viacom and Dish are in a war of words that could leave 13 million without MTV, Comedy Central, and more

Viacom's cable networks are in danger of getting dropped by Dish
Networks.

The owner of such networks as MTV, Nickelodeon, and Comedy
Central launched a website Tuesday to pressure Dish into
agreeing to carry its networks.

"We are extremely disappointed that DISH has not engaged in
a serious way to reach an agreement for Viacom’s number one
family of cable networks," said a statement from a Viacom
spokesman.

In response, a Dish spokesman said that Viacom is
unjustifiably trying to get more money for its networks.

"Viacom is asking for hundreds of millions of dollars
in increases, despite the changing landscape that includes
drastically reduced viewership of Viacom channels and wide
availability of their content across multiple platforms," the
spokesman said in a statement.

Television providers and content producers have
contracts in which the cable companies pay content-makers fees in
order to carry their channels.

The deal between Viacom and Dish Networks is set to
expire Wednesday, meaning that Viacom's channels will go
black for Dish subscribers once the deal is up.

According to Bloomberg, Dish's 13 million subscribers have
begun to see a crawling message at the bottom of the picture on
Viacom networks informing them of the move.

This sort of wrangling between a cable provider and content
company is not unprecedented. In fact, Viacom went through a
similar battle in 2013 with Time Warner Cable which was resolved
without a blackout.

The pressure may have backfired, however, as shares of
Viacom dove in trading Tuesday. The stock finished the day down a
little more than 8.0%. Dish on the other hand was up by a bit
over 1%.

UPDATE: DISH has provided the
following statement to Business Insider regarding the situation:

We regret that Viacom has chosen to involve customers in a
business negotiation when time remains to reach an agreement.
Viacom unilaterally elected to terminate an indefinite contract
extensiontomorrownight despite meaningful
progress on a new agreement that confronts a rapidly evolving
pay-TV environment. Viacom is asking for hundreds of millions of
dollars in increases, despite the changing landscape that
includes drastically reduced viewership of Viacom channels and
wide availability of their content across multiple platforms,
frustrating consumers who don't want to pay twice for the same
content. DISH will continue to negotiate in good faith to reach
an agreement that works for both sides.

Viacom also provided the following statement to Business
Insider:

Viacom has made every effort to negotiate a renewal for
DISH subscribers, including granting multiple extensions.
We have offered DISH a best-in-class deal at rates and terms as
good as larger distributors, with additional services and
features for their customers. In turn, DISH has made
demands that are designed to be impossible to meet in order to
take our negotiations public and likely force our programming off
the air. This is a clear example of DISH’s disregard for
their customers, who will be subjected to another unnecessary
disruption in service. In addition to depriving our fans of
our networks and programming, DISH is further undermining their
fundamentally disadvantaged business by driving their subscribers
to switch to a different provider.